What is the real importance of Mexican biodiversity and endemism?

Overall, when we talk about the diversity of Mexico, we refer to this as a privileged country. For example, it is in third place for vascular flora diversity in the Americas (Llorente-Bousquets and Ocegueda, 2008). This diversity is principally attributed to the complex physiographic structure resulting from the interaction between five tectonic plates—North American, Pacific, Rivera, Coccos, Caribbean — (Ortega et al., 2000), and because it is a site of transition between two biogeographic regions (Neotropics, Neartic). However, overall we omit one important factor that influences in the biological prominence protagonism of Mexico: it is the fifth largest country in the Americas (1.964.375 km²). For example, Venezuela (916.445 km²), Ecuador (283.561 km²) and Peru (1.285.216 km²), are the next for top vascular plant richness (Llorente-Bousquets and Ocegueda, 2008. However, all of them have considerably less territorial area than Mexico. The most dramatic is Ecuador with less than a quarter of the area of Mexico.

When we talk about endemism, the scenario is similar. The endemism should be evaluated regionalizing geographic units that have the same history, not political constraints. For example, the Guyana shield (with 40% of endemism) in South America, is a region with a high index of endemism due to its unique conditions (Funk et al., 2007). This region is shared between three countries; Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. For this reason, a lot of species that are in the Guyana shield are not endemic to any of these countries. This happens for several biogeographic provinces that span two or more countries. Due to the size of Mexico, it has several unique biogeographic regions

Mexico definitely is a complex country in terms of its diversity. However, we are undervaluing the importance of countries with a smaller territorial area. In the evaluation of the biological richness, we must give more importance to the history of the earth, not man.

The one about YouTube.

Last post I write about millenials and the technological world we lived in. Today almost everything is involved with social media; nowadays, even churches are on Facebook. But without a doubt one social platform that changes the way we see and use the Internet is YouTube.

Basically, YouTube is a website in which users upload and share videos. You can find movie clips, TV shows, music videos and amateur content in the form of videoblogs. It`s hard to think of someone close to you that doesn`t know what YouTube is or at least hasn’t seen a YouTube video.

One of the most popular content on YouTube is the videoblog. In the simplest form a videoblog consist of one or more persons talking about any subject in front of a camera. And the people talking to the camera are called Youtubers, and those are the ones I want to talk about today.

Youtubers have (like a TV) channels, in which they upload their content and people can view it as many times as they want. The variety of shows are immense: you can find anything form makeup tutorials, cooking recipes, gameplays (footage of someone playing a videogame) math lessons, instructions to build a robot, traveling tips, and some really random things, like a dancing man wearing a horse mask while cooking wild mushrooms.

You may wonder, what do Youtubers obtain form uploading this videos every week? At first, it was just for the opportunity to share with the world the thoughts in their heads, and then it became something like a popularity contest and a very profitable business. Each person subscribed to a channel and every time a video is reproduced it becomes a profit for the Youtubers, if they agree to enter in some sort of partnership deal with an advertiser (mostly for publicity proposes).

Here is when things get interesting. One of the famous Youtubers is a Norwegian guy who uploads videos of himself playing videogames, and he has more than 42 millions subscribers and in 2014 he made more than 27 million dollars in revenue from his YouTube videos. I mean, 42 million subscribers, that’s almost the same population as Colombia, Argentina or Sudan. And the amount of money he earned just in 2014 is impressive but that is not the point I want to make in this post. I want to focus in the exposure these people have in the world. Just think about it, they have access to millions and millions of people every week. Some of them even have more influence or acceptance than the President or the Prime minister of many countries.

In my opinion some Youtubers haven’t used this privileged position effectively: to share meaningful messages to a youth that desperately needs them.

The mechanism of Evolution

One of Darwin’s contributions to biology was to explain the complex morphological adaptations of organisms through natural selection. This process is an important mechanism in evolution, which benefits the perpetuation of the species. Hence, in many discussions about this issue, little has been said about other evolutionary mechanisms.

We can define evolution as the change in the allelic frequency of populations between generations. In this definition, natural selection generates a constant pressure on alleles. Alleles that are not favorable given certain ecological and environmental conditions tend to disappear. Alleles that are favorable perpetuate and are maintained in the population. In many cases, reproductive success in a population could be due to the presence of favorable alleles. However, in other cases certain alleles tend to disappear as a result of random sampling of the alleles in the next generation. This random loss of alleles is named genetic drift. This mechanism is more common when the size of the population is small. The less frequent alleles tend to disappear while the more frequent alleles will be fixed in the next generation.

One factor that maintains the allelic frequency between populations is gene flow. When there are two populations with different allelic frequencies in some of their genes, genetic interchange changes the frequency of the alleles increasing the genetic variability of both populations.

These evolutionary mechanisms (natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow) reduce or maintain but do not increase the frequency of alleles. Mutations are the source from which genetic variability increases in a species. This last mechanism is bidirectional in the sense that it can generate alleles that are expressed like an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage.

The four mechanisms mentioned, are the principal macro-evolutionary forces that have led to the world’s current biodiversity. Although natural selection was discovered first, it isn’t the most important. The importance of each mechanism depends on the natural context and the intrinsic characteristics of the population.

“The use and misuse of technology” or “how I learned to stop worrying and went off the grid”.

We all love gadgets. We buy them, read about them in blogs, compare them, criticize them but, most importantly, we use them everyday. There is not one day that goes by that we don’t touch a computer, cellphone, camera, etc. Even on vacation, sometimes we are more worried about taking pictures of all the right things and places than actually seeing and experiencing….

Almost exactly a year ago I left my cozy desk at the research center to do a short internship in the north of Italy, very near the Italian Alps. I had to take three planes, three trains and one bus to get there. As almost everything in Europe is Wi-Fi free, I felt extremely anxious from the moment I left the airport (the last place with free Wi-Fi).  When I finally got to the guesthouse where I was supposed to stay, all tired and jetlagged, the first thing I did was ask: “What’s the Wi-Fi password?” I logged on and had approximately a billion texts, e-mails, posts, messages, etc. to respond. So I started working on them ASAP. I spent more than 3 hours completely glued to my computer from the moment I stepped in. I didn’t even look outside my own window.

The next day, the drastic change of schedule, the sleeping on and off in trains and bus stations made me wake up at approximately 4 AM CEST (Central European Summer Time).  Since it was around 9 AM in Mexico, I started to send some texts and e-mails to get everything going for the day.  My roommate at the guesthouse, a German girl named Laura, got up at 9 AM and asked me if I had a “good sleep”. By then I realized it was 9 AM and I had been up since 4 AM texting and sending e-mails and felt a bit embarrassed for myself, so I lied “yeah, a bit cold but I feel very rested”. To which she responded, “must have had a very strange dream to have you typing since 4 AM”. Now I felt really embarrassed. I asked if I had woken her and she said that she had gotten up to use the bathroom and saw my lights on and heard the keyboard.  She said it was fine and she invited me to go hiking near the mountains with some of her friends and I said I probably needed to stay and catch up with some work. After, she gave a long and pitiful look and gave me some directions in case I decided to join later.  I felt terrible.

I spent approximately 15 horrible minutes sitting at my computer staring blankly at the screen with my thesis corrections, emails from my advisors, messages from the message boards I follow on the internet, my Facebook feed & messages, my twitter account, etc. I felt frustrated and a bit angry, so I decided to make some coffee.

Right by the kitchen, there was a massive window, it was slightly open and the air coming from outside was chilly. I was looking around the cabinets for some coffee and felt the air from the window and thought. “Wow, it IS cold”. I hadn’t even really noticed the temperature. I found some funny looking Italian coffee maker and coffee and made a tiny “Mocha”. It smelled delicious. I stood near the window and looked outside the window to feel the cold (since we don’t get to feel it very often where I live) and the sun was right in the middle of two massive mountains with snowy tops. I felt chills down my spine. It was breathtaking. I took my coffee outside and looked at the mountains for a long time. Then after a while, a guy running down the side of the apartments in sports clothing and a tiny backpack looked at me and said “hey new girl! I’m Matteo, I’m friends with Laura, she said last chance to go to the mountains and catch a ride with me.” I opened my mouth to say that I really needed to stay and work on some e-mails and things but the words that came out were, “OKAY give me 10 minutes!” I changed, took my backpack, a water bottle, my camera and left. We started walking towards the “small train station” and we talked a bit. He said that almost every Sunday they go out to hike or climb, or whatever they can do outside. I said… on Sundays I mostly work. Then I felt that long pitiful look again. By then I remembered work and instinctively felt my pocket. It was empty. I had forgotten my cellphone. I felt my forehead break a sweat. I felt very anxious but I just kept going. He noticed my discomfort and said: “You forgot your cellphone, right?” with a smile. “You won’t need it, don’t worry”.

I thought I might as well make my peace with it since we had been walking for a while and I didn’t know the way back.

So I just smiled a very uncomfortable smile and said, ok.

We got on the small train and kept talking for a while. Then after about an hour, everything fell silent and he dozed off. I noticed he didn’t even check his cellphone once. I also noticed the temperature, and the people getting on and off. So different, I thought. I saw Arab women in hijabs, stylish teenagers, people in suits (yes, on Sunday), people with dogs, their hairstyles, their clothes, their shoes, such variety. We got off at the most northern stop, almost at the border with Germany. The station was beautiful. It was all gray stone and it had these huge old stone clocks in the middle. I got near the stone to touch it and it was so cold. I realized when I got here the day before I didn’t notice the train stations, or the people or anything at all and felt a bit sad. We walked north to the cable car that crossed the river and led higher to the mountain. We got on the cable car and saw the river and the entire city become smaller and smaller. When we got to the top of the mountains we met Laura and the rest of her friends. Then we walked and walked and walked along “Sentiero della Castagna” up until we reached a lookout. The view was spectacular, trees were all colors, red, yellow, brown, green, as were the leaves on the ground. We found chestnuts on the floor. It was like something out of a fairy tale. We shared a bottle of wine and sandwiches on the lookout and headed back following the trail beside a tiny river and made our way back. Finally, we got to the guesthouse and they said we should go to town and walk around and have dinner. Then I remembered my cellphone, I ran to check it. I had a billion messages again, but again I said… ok just give me 15. I took a quick shower, changed clothes and left my cellphone on purpose this time. I spent one night having conversations with actual three-dimensional people, had fun and the world didn’t end.  Cellphone detox was awesome.

On the next days, I started the course at the Foundation but when the course finished we went out almost every night and I decided to not bring my phone. I didn’t even check to see if I had anything on my e-mail. Whatever there was would have to wait. Then, when I decided to check my messages I found that most of them could actually wait.  Most things can actually wait.  There are really very few things that need attention on the moment. You won’t die if you miss a few posts on your Facebook feed. You won’t die if you miss ALL of the posts on your Facebook feed. NO ONE will.

In the beginning, scientific research was marked by a male model corresponding to rationalism and fit perfectly with a methodical subject that obeyed the characteristics required of those engaged in scientific research. When the first scientific societies began forming around the seventeenth century, the presence of women in the public scene was not tolerated. It was only in the twentieth century when women scientists  were recognized for their work. This does not mean that women did not do science before that, but their visibility and production spaces were totally different.

The work that women have played in the scientific field has the same value and importance as men. However, in many cases, women have had to overcome major challenges in the development of their scientific career. One of the main challenges to be confronted, in addition to overcoming social stereotypes, is to match their career with aspects of family life, such as the motherhood.

Assuming that the scientific world is considered the sphere of reason par excellence, which is restricted to an objective vision, and that motherhood is a subjective experience, it means that motherhood is incompatible with the academic and scientific fields. For that reason, as has been pointed out by several studies, there has been a general trend in women scientists putting aside motherhood to concentrate on scientific work.

However, is it really necessary to choose between the scientific vocation and motherhood? Personally I think not. Although it is true that neither is easy and both require high dedication, I think women can follow the scientific vocation without sacrificing motherhood. Women can be well organized in both activities so that they can faithfully fulfill both tasks simultaneously.

Molecules vs. morphology: exclusive or integrative evidences of evolutionary relationships.

Prior to the first phylogenetic studies of systematics in the 1960’s, morphology was the only source of information available to test hypotheses of evolutionary relationships. It was assumed that morphologically similar organisms must be phylogenetically more closely related than those that are not. Later, with the development of new technologies, molecular evidence revolutionized the way that phylogenetic relationships are seen. The logic for the molecular analysis is the same: organisms that are phylogenetically more related should be more similar in their genetic content. However, the two sources of information have generated a debate about which is the best for obtaining the true evolutionary history of lineages (Patterson et al., 1993).

We can argue advantages and disadvantages for each type of data. On one hand, morphological information is an easy tool that permits constructing phylogenetic trees with little time and money. In many cases they obtain the same results as those using molecular information. A well done morphologic analysis can be considered an indirect sampling of all the genome. The disadvantage in morphological analysis is susceptibility to evolutionary convergence (Sanderson and Donoghue 1989). For example, Cactaceae and some groups of Euphorbiaceae both develop succulent structures in response to similar selective pressures but are distantly related.

The molecular information, on the other hand, provides a greater amount of information and permits us (with informatics tools) to analyze the information with more variables (e.g. mutation rate). Also it is possible to respond to questions that cannot be answered with morphology. For example, whether the molecular information of the chloroplast suggest different relationships that of the nucleus in certain species, it can mean a possible hybridization event. However, in some cases, it is hard to define relationships with the molecular information for several reasons.  For example, recently diverged groups may be very similar in their molecules making it difficult to obtain informative homologies that can be concentrated in a little part of the genome. In most of cases, molecular studies are done with few regions of DNA that represent a small proportion of the whole genome hampering to find these informative homologies. Another difficulty is incomplete lineage sorting. It can produce discrepancy between the phylogenetic tree for a specific gene or a genomic segment and the overall species-level phylogenetic tree. In this last case, when we reconstruct a phylogeny with molecular information, we are reconstructing the evolutionary history of the genes when we are interested in the history of the clades.

There is no evidence whether morphological or molecular information is the best for test the evolutionary relationships. In any case, this conflict is irrelevant considering that the objective of molecular systematics is not to refute hypotheses generated from morphological characters. The real objective is to assist morphological analyses when morphological variation is limited and the homology of the characters is not clear. In most cases, molecular information has supported the monophyletic characterization of groups recognized initially with morphological information. For example, the Leguminosae Family was recognized with a small set of morphological data (Jussieu, 1789) and later a large amount of molecular studies confirmed monophyly and even recognized subfamilies and the relationships between them.

Being a millennial…

I bet you hear the world millennial at least once a week. That’s how someone decides to call my generation, and all the people born between 1980-2000.  We are the digital generation; the ones who lived to see how the TV’s slim down, the computers shrunk, and the cell phones became a necessity instead of a commodity. We live with our faces stuck to a screen, and we have all the information we want in the moment we need it.

The world is changing (well… everything is changing, all the time) but, most important, the way we see the world has changed. Is not just about how millennials like this or that product, or the things we’re interested in. It is about taking into account that we are the largest generation ever (larger than “baby boomers”) and the way we see the world is the way we’re going to shape it.

Don’t get me wrong, being a millennial is fun, living in a era when technology advances faster than we can keep up with, seeing gadgets that can change your life every week and being literary just a few clicks away from almost everything and everyone; it has it merit.

For me, as a millennial, is interesting to analyse the way we’re doing some things in today’s world. For example, we are the “slash” ( / ) generation, it is really hard to put a millennial in just one box, we usually have 2,3 or more “titles” or things we do. It is not like the old days anymore, when someone asked you “What do you do for a living?”  And it was easier to respond with a simple: I’m a lawyer or I’m a scientist.  Now we struggle to explain what is that we do, because we are involved in so many things, and we end up saying something like: Well, I’m a entrepreneur/student/small business owner/research enthusiast and I`m thinking to start a NGO, but I don’t know yet.

We are the most academically prepared generation but also we’re the worst paid generation. We invest our time and money in experiences, we prefer to spend our savings on a trip around the world rather than make the first payment for a car or a house (like our parents). We are better informed than other generations, and we’re more conscious about the current situation with the world, the environment, economy, etc. Maybe that’s why we also are the generation that doesn’t want to have children or get married, we understand a little better the world and we think twice before bringing a new life to it.

All of this makes me wonder how tomorrow’s world is going to be.

If you want to know more about millennials and how we do things, you can check out this interesting infographic to have some info.

http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/millennials/

See you in the next post.

Folk taxonomy: Correspondences between the Maya and the science

Recent studies on the Mayan world are focused on the connection between Maya speakers and their environment. There is a lot of ways to study this relationship, one of which is through the Folk taxonomy. This term refers to the classification system (of plants in this case) that has been developed in societies as a product of their needs and it is independent from scientific research. This definition sounds pejorative if we consider the absence of scientific work as synonymous to little validity. However, the transcendence of the taxonomy will depends on its intended purpose. If we considered that folk taxonomy, in general, it is established with approximations detached from the paradigm of evolution, it is possible that it is not useful for carrying out current scientific studies. But if we see folk taxonomy from a practical sense, it gains relevance.

According to the universal rules to which the traditional taxonomic systems conform (Barrera, 1979), the most important plants in a community’s environment will be linguistically expressed with more extension and precision. In this sense, it provides evidence about the taxonomic structure that delimits the natural context of Mayan communities (Atran 1999). So, if we have a culturally universal and very well structured taxonomy, we should to consider folk taxonomy as an important tool for understanding how the Mayas (or any other culture) appreciate the environmental phenomena around them.

Although the reasoning process that drives a community to develop both scientific and folk taxonomy it is altogether distinct, the similarity between current scientific taxonomic units (eg. species or genus) and its Mayan equivalents is surprising. For example, most of the Mayan linguistic groups (equivalent to Family), correspond to Families recognized by the botanical taxonomy with some variations. For example, the Maya categorize plants as: su’uk (grasses: Gramineae and Cyperaceae), xa’an (Arecaceae), Ki (Agavaceae), ts’ipil (Nolinaceae) and tsaham (Cactaceae) (Barrera, 1979).

Correspondences of this type occur at different taxonomic scale (Family, genus, specie) and we could study them more thoroughly in order to better understand the sociocultural elements that composed prehispanic mayan communities.